Cauchemar

Gripping, fast-paced, gorgeously written, and with unforgettable characters, Cauchemar tells the story of 20-year-old Hannah, who finds herself living alone on the edge of a Louisianan swamp after her adopted mother and protector dies. Hannah falls in love with Callum, an easy-going boat captain and part-time musician, but after her mysterious birth mother, outcast as a witch and rumoured to commune with the dead, comes back into Hannah’s life, she must confront what she’s been hiding from — the deadly spirits that haunt the swamp, the dark secrets of her past, and the nascent gift she possesses.

Like the nightmares that plague Hannah, Cauchemar lingers and haunts.

Alexandra Grigorescu has a Master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Toronto, where she attended writing workshops led by George Elliott Clark and Jeff Parker and wrote her thesis under the guidance of Camilla Gibb. She works as a freelance writer and lives in Toronto, Ontario. This is her debut novel.

“Grigorescu applies just the right tonal touch to her macabre subject matter . . . The book is full of riveting prose about complex, fallible characters. I rushed through the final chapter impatient to see how it would all end — and the ambiguous final plot twist cries out for a sequel.” — Quill & Quire

“A paradox of horror and beauty . . . The author is also very talented in teasing the eyes, the tongue and the mind with words, describing both a beautiful and a haunting world that not many know exist.” — Svetlana’s Reads

“A dark, gripping debut from a very talented writer!” — Booking It with Hayley G

“From the very beginning, Alexandra Grigorescu’s debut novel Cauchemar pulls the reader into the haunting desperation of the southern gothic . . . What makes Cauchemar so effective — so ominous and creepy — lies in Grigorescu’s skill in setting a scene. There’s a convincing aura of melancholy and malevolence haunting Hannah’s world.” — Broken Pencil

“Alexandra Grigorescu works pure magic with the line, pulling proverbial rabbits from alligator hats and performing mind-bending enchantments upon every page. Like many of the spellbinding characters of Cauchemar, Grigorescu possesses a preternatural talent.” — Spencer Gordon, author of Cosmo

“As quickly as Alexandra Grigorescu evokes the robust spices in deep south cooking, she sends shivers up your spine at the mention of something white and scaly sneaking through Hannah’s dreams . . . and into her reality.” — Editorial Eyes

“Grigorescu grabs readers with a sense of foreboding at the start and builds intense tension as she leads them into a haunting place where the lines between dream and reality, living and dead, blur and hypnotize.” — PublishersWeekly.com

“The tone was perfect for a gothic novel and I think I’ll be delving into the genre some more.” — Lavender Lines

“Moody, spicy, sexy, vivid, and creepy-as-hell.” — The Book Stylist

“There are books to curl up with on lazy summer afternoons: guilty pleasures and romantic page-turners. Cauchemar by Canadian writer Alexandra Grigorescu is such a book; a stolen moment of pure fantasy, elevated by the author’s mesmerizing brand of descriptive, evocative language . . .Cauchemar easily surpasses its rivals of Twilight and True Blood, due to the poetic quality of Grigorescu’s writing.” — Scene Magazine